Volcano Eruption Halts Europe Flights

Smoke and steam rose from the volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in Iceland.
Icelandic Coastguard/Associated Press

By

Paul Sonne,

Daniel Michaels And

Kaveri Niththyananthan

Updated April 16, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

Ash clouds that spouted from a volcano in Iceland and drifted across Europe caused the largest international airspace shutdown in years and threatened to choke air travel for days and pose problems for months.

The volcano, under a glacier known as Eyjafjallajokull, began erupting several weeks ago for the first time since the 1820s. It exploded more violently early Wednesday, spewing ash 30,000 feet into the air.

Iceland Volcano Causes Disruptions

Because volcanic ash can cause engine failure in airplanes, civil aviation authorities shut down airports across northern and western Europe on Thursday as the cloud drifted across the Continent. Cancellations scrambled flight plans as far south as Italy and Spain.

"It's unprecedented to have so much airspace closed," said a spokeswoman for Eurocontrol, the 38-country agency in Brussels that coordinates European flights.

U.S. carriers canceled about 165 flights on Thursday, or half of their daily traffic to and from Europe—which typically passes near Iceland—and at least as many for Friday, according to the Air Transport Association, an umbrella group for U.S. airlines.

Experts say it is impossible to predict how long the volcano will continue to erupt or at what intensity. An expedition team that returned from the volcano on Thursday found the eruption was still going strong, with a lot of ash being propelled into the air, said
Oli Aranson,
a meteorologist at Iceland's national meteorological office.

"We are most likely going to have an ash cloud for the next couple of days at least," Mr. Aranson said on Thursday. He said the wind would continue blowing in the direction of the British Isles until the middle of next week.

Even if the volcano stops spewing dust on Friday, flights will remain disrupted for several days because planes and crews are out of place. After Sept. 11, 2001—the last time authorities closed such a broad swath of airspace—it took U.S. carriers almost a week to get their schedules near normal.

Paul Sonne discusses how Iceland's volcanic eruption is disrupting European air travel.

More than half a million fliers were affected Thursday, and hundreds of thousands more could be inconvenienced daily as serious disruptions continue.

Britain, France, Germany, Ireland, Belgium, Poland the Netherlands and Scandinavia shut down airports Thursday. Airports affected included two of the world's busiest hubs, Heathrow in London and Charles de Gaulle in Paris. BAA Ltd. said flights it operates at airports in Britain in England, including Heathrow, would be closed until at least 1 p.m. Friday.

Eurocontrol said that 5,000 to 6,000 of the Continent's 28,000 daily flights had been grounded Thursday. About 300 trans-Atlantic flights—half the daily total—by U.S. and European carriers combined were canceled.

Poland's closure, if it continues, will prevent international dignitaries from attending the funeral Sunday of President Lech Kaczynski, who was killed with a delegation of Polish leaders in a plane crash last week. About 70 foreign delegations, including President Barack Obama, are scheduled to attend. The White House said it is watching developments.

Graphic

An extended grounding could prove painful to Europe's carriers. Airlines frequently cope with weather-related grounding for reasons such as snow and thunderstorms, but such disturbances rarely last more than a day.

The volcanic eruption and resulting disruption comes as the global airline industry has shown signs of recovery after its worst crisis in decades. Traffic volumes and passenger fares have been rising this year as the global economy has come back to life.

The disruption could be particularly painful to carriers such as
British Airways
PLC and Scandinavian Airlines System, which are already facing heavy financial losses. As the cloud spread, it also grounded Irish carriers Ryanair Holdings PLC and Aer Lingus Group PLC, British carriers easyJet PLC and Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd., and the Dutch and French units of Air France-KLM SA. German airspace closures affected Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Air Berlin. Beyond, LOT Polish Airlines SA and Hungary's Wizz Air, which operates extensively in Poland, will also face disruptions.

The disturbance could save carriers some money on fuel and other operating costs—but not enough to offset the loss of revenue and the cost of putting passengers up in hotels and feeding them, if necessary.

After the last major event began at Eyjafjallajokull, in 1821, disturbances continued on and off for about a year. It is located under a glacier and has erupted four times in the past 1,100 years.

This year, the more dramatic activity emanating from Eyjafjallajokul (pronounced ay-yah-FYAH'-plah-yer-kuh-duhl) came when a new vent under the central crater opened around midnight Tuesday and later began spewing ash, according to the Nordic Volcanological Center in Reykjavík, which monitors volcanic activity in the region.

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A number of dangerous incidents involving volcanic ash interfering with airplane engines caused the United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organization to establish the Volcanic Ash Warning System, a global system of nine centers that uses computer modeling to forecast the path of ash clouds and alerts aviation services if necessary. The VAWS alerted civil aviation authorities in Europe after Eyjafjallajokull's eruption.

In 1982, a British Airways Boeing 747 flying over Indonesia flew through an ash cloud produced by the eruption of Mount Galunggung. The plane, flying at 37,000 feet, with 247 passengers and 15 crew on board, lost all four engines. The crew descended rapidly out of the cloud and managed to restart three engines, eventually landing safely at Jakarta airport. A number of similar incidents occurred in the 1980s as well.

Volcanic ash presents a serious threat to jetliners flying at high altitude. The ash, which has a consistency similar to talcum powder, can be invisible and often doesn't show up on either ground-based radar or the weather radar systems on board jetliners, according to
Paul Hayes,
director of safety at Ascend Ltd., an aviation consulting firm in London.

The first warning a flight crew would have of volcanic dust is a sulfurous smell from the plane's air-conditioning system and possibly electrical discharges, known as "St. Elmo's fire," on some external surfaces of the plane, Mr. Hayes said.

As of late Thursday, the volcano was still pumping out new ash, and civil aviation authorities across Europe worried that the volcano would continue disturbing air traffic for months.

"Volcanoes are notoriously irregular in their behavior," said
Pall Einarsson,
professor of geophysics at the University of Iceland. "If there is any rule about them it is: There is no rule."

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